BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) - China has been actively assisting African countries in fighting the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since the outbreak, a health official said Thursday.

Photo taken on March 24, 2020 shows workers doing renovation at Wilkins Hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's main COVID-19 isolation and treatment center, Wilkins Hospital, which was upgraded by Chinese enterprises at a cost of more than 500,000 U.S. dollars, has been completed. (Photo: Xinhua)

China has been dispatching medical teams to African countries for 57 years, with nearly 1,000 medics now working in Africa, said Li Mingzhu, an official with the National Health Commission (NHC), at a press conference.

Since COVID-19 broke out in Africa, the NHC has instructed the Africa-based medical teams to support their host countries in epidemic response and carry out training and health education campaigns for more than 250 times, with more than 10,000 people having attended the training, Li said.

Training conducted by Chinese medical teams in local hospitals has raised local medical staff's capacity for early identification, diagnosis and clinical treatment, he said.

Chinese medical teams have issued COVID-19 response guidelines in multiple languages, which have yielded positive results, Li noted. Enditem